In the Pale Moonlight
by The Mad Habberdasher
Summary: "I love you," Kenzi said. "I love both of you. Be safe." Dyson looked up at Kenzi and watched her fall off the side of the building. The "no" on his lips built to a roar, then a howl, and then there was nothing. Sequel to the In the Morning Light. Dyson/Kenzi
1. Kenzi's Nightmare

Chapter One: Kenzi's Nightmare

The yellow-gold eyes stared at her, and she dared not move under their fierce gaze. She dared not breathe. She didn't know how this could be happening again.

 _Not again_ , her mind wailed.

 _Not again._

 _Not again._

 _Please with all that's holy in this world, not again._

Kenzi blinked, and the yellow-gold eyes blinked too. She wanted to scream. That wouldn't do any good though. It did no good the night it happened, and it did no good in each of her dreams for the last week. She choked the scream off, and fought the tears which came like little soldiers to die on her cheeks.

The yellow-gold eyes closed too, and the mirror showed Kenzi as she jerked her head away from it. The truth was out there. Kenzi is a werewolf to be. She covered her ears and dropped to the floor, her knees folding under her. She had stopped the scream, but couldn't stop the tears. She could never stop the tears.

Now, if dreams, or nightmares, followed the same flow as reality, then Dyson would come running in to save the day. He would kneel down beside her, look her in the eyes, and ask what was wrong.

That was the problem. By the time Dyson came to the rescue the wolf eyes had vanished, leaving her teary hazel orbs behind. When she opened her mouth to tell the truth, nothing would come out. Even then she knew what the truth meant.

She knew what the fae would do.

Her shoulders shuddered, but she shook her head and dried her eyes. This dream was different from the others.

Dyson didn't come rushing in because there was no scream. She knew she wasn't alone though. There was another presence in the Dahl's women's room with her. She could feel it. She could smell its vile blood soaked stench. She could hear the beating of its heart as though it was her own. There was a pounding in her ears. She realized she was hearing two heart beats. Her own, and the other, and they were beating right in time with one another.

Breath filled her lungs and her ears. Their hearts beat the same. Their breathing was the same. Kenzi wondered if her unwanted company had the same chill creeping up its spine.

Fear clenched tight in her stomach. Fear of what would be there when she turned around.

 _It's just a dream_ , she told herself.

"Oh, it's far more than a dream," a deep voice said. The voice sounded like gravel grating together, and the air from those lips came out with something resembling a growl. "It's far more than a dream, and it's about time you fessed up to it. Turn around."

Kenzi couldn't stop herself. Her feet moved under the _other's_ command. Right then she knew far more of her life than she wanted was going to be controlled by that gravelly voice.

"Come now, Kenzi. You shouldn't think so negatively of me. After all, you and I are going to be spending quite some time together."

Her turn complete, Kenzi found a man standing behind her. He was taller than she was by two full feet it seemed, and his facial structure was remarkably similar to Dyson. Only Dyson lacked the yellow-gold eyes that stared out from his sockets. He lacked the shaggy black hair. Though the scruff of a five o'clock shadow was common between them. He smiled, and his teeth were like steak knives.

He wore only a pair of loose fitting black pants. His chest was covered in thickly corded muscle, every one of which seemed like a tightly wound coil, and black hair almost hid his skin. His feet were bare. The toenails were thick and dark, ending in a dagger like point an inch away from the tips of his toes. He held his hands behind his back.

"Who are you?" Kenzi asked, her voice sounding small in the air of her dream. Nothing like his.

"You know me."

 _Lykos._

"We've met before."

Claws and blood flashed through her mind. Dyson lying dead with his intestines spilled out on the ground. Bo and Hale were crucified on the stone walls, each of them partially eaten. Trick's head was laying in one of the sinks.

 _Lykos._

A scream rose to Kenzi's lips. Lykos' hand was there in a flash, clamping tight over her jaws. She felt his fingernails, like claws, digging into her skin. Her eyes went wide as she stared up into his darkly familiar face.

"Do you want to see it again?" Lykos asked. He was on the floor next to her. Holding her tight. Whispering in her ear like a lover. "Do you want to watch them die again?"

She tried to shake her head. Lykos' hand held her head steady, but he flashed her a deadly smile.

"See, I thought you had some sense." Lykos said. "I'm going to let go now, and stand up. If you scream, you'll be the one killing them. Not me. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

Lykos looked at her for a moment, those yellow-gold eyes boring deep into her soul. Deeper even, than Kenzi had ever seen in any mirror. What he saw there must have been funny. He flashed her a fang filled devil's grin.

His hand left her mouth, while the other encircled her wrist. He shifted his weight, rolling on the balls of his feet, into a crouched ready to spring position.

Kenzi's breath caught in her chest.

Lykos raised a hand, splayed out into a fan, to his lips.

 _No!_

That smile disappeared with some reluctance and his lips came together, like he was puckering up for a kiss.

 _God's no!_

He took a deep breath, and then it began.

"Don't!" Kenzi screamed as she jerked forward, trying to cover his lips as he had covered hers.

"Aaaaaooooooo," Lykos howled. The sound seemed to make everything in the bathroom vibrate. It sang to every bone; every muscle; every drop of blood in Kenzi's body. She stopped mid motion, like she'd forgotten what she was going to do, and she was compelled.

No.

Not compelled.

She wanted it.

Kenzi raised her voice in a howl right alongside Lykos.

The door to the bathroom banged open and four people rushed into the room. Dyson leading the charge, followed by Bo and Hale—both were already dead; their bodies sitting cold in the county morgue—and Trick brought up the rear.

Now Kenzi realized what Lykos had meant to do.

She was going to kill them.

Pain lit every nerve ending in Kenzi's body on fire. The transformation and all its horrors rippled through her. Arms and legs grew longer, gaining god only knows how much muscle mass. Her hands and feet became paws, each with six-inch daggers in place of nails. Her jaw pushed out, and her face became the monsters muzzle, and fangs filled her mouth. What her four friends found when they entered the bathroom was death on four legs. Dyson stared into Kenzi's eyes, her wolf's eyes, and all the yellow-gold orbs showed him was damnation.

Kenzi's lips curled back in a snarl. Her heavy back fur covered body was primed and ready to spring.

Dyson stared.

The real horror of the situation was simple. Kenzi wanted to kill them. She wanted to bathe in fae blood. She wanted to rip the precious life giving flesh from their limbs.

Kenzi snarled, and have a single bark of warning before she tore into them.

Lykos laughed, deep laughs filled with the purest distillation of joy possible. Lykos laughed while Kenzi killed.

Kenzi jerked awake in bed. She heard the tear of cloth, and realized she had a piece of her pillow stuck between her teeth. Her stomach lurched. She could taste blood.

She spit the piece out without looking at it, and ran for the bathroom. She took the steps two at a time, and used the door to get in. Even though there was a human shaped hole much closer to the stairs.

Her stomach emptied itself. Everything she'd eaten that day, which had been very little, floated on the surface.

There was no blood. No chunks of human flesh.

She sighed.

Then heaved again.

When her stomach was completely devoid of matter, she curled up beside the toilet and began to cry.

Part of her wondered if she had woke Dyson up.

The other part of her saw the irony of the situation.

Three weeks ago she'd been curled up in nearly the same position, crying as the morning light crept through the window. It was apropos that her tears now fell in the pale moonlight.


	2. On Legs That Shouldn't Move

Chapter Two: On Legs That Shouldn't Move

Tiffany Grant's eyes were glazed over as they moved back and forth across the computer screen. She was supposed to be looking over patient records. The list of those admitted to Rosencrantz General's Emergency Room was uncommonly short for this time of year. The dog days of summer as nature fought against the death autumn promised at its end. The temperatures were still hanging around the eighties, and the windows of the sliding glass doors were fogged from the ER's air conditioning.

Mrs. Grant could still feel the sticky heat seeping in through the very walls, it seemed.

Her eyes kept on the computer screen, even as she caught movement out of one of the corners. It was a security camera, placed so the nurses could see incoming patients, giving them time to determine how best to care for the patient when they came through the doors.

The nurses hardly ever paid attention to it.

A figure appeared on the screen though, and wind began to whip the camera around. Intense winds, moving a hundred times faster than a hurricane. The image began to be distorted as the lens shook from the vibration.

"What is that?" one of the other nurses asked. Tiffany turned, surprised, and looked at the screen. The image stayed solid for a sing second, then cut to static. Outside of the ER there was a tearing crunch announcing the death of the security camera.

"What the hell?" Tiffany said.

The windows began to rattle in their panes.

A bolt of lightning caressed the bullet proof glass. The clap of thunder, a sound as intense as a semi hitting a concrete barrier at a hundred miles an hour, roared in the ER. The nurses clapped their hands to their ears.

One of the nurses screamed and dropped to her knees.

Tiffany looked. She could see blood oozing out of the other woman's ears.

The window rattled and rattled as bolt after bolt of lightning struck it. Between the flashes, which nearly blinded her, Tiffany could see out into the parking lot. She saw one of the street lamps explode as lightning struck it. The wind whipped and whipped, turning an ambulance over. Other cars windows shattered. Two more of them were destroyed by lightning.

At the eye, just coming into view, was one single woman. At least Tiffany thought it was a woman. There seemed to be nothing left of her but a head, torso, and half her legs. The arms that dangled at her sides were thin as the bones beneath. The legs below the knees were the same. There wasn't a way possible, there could be no muscle mass at all under the skin. Maybe just enough meat for the tracery of veins and arteries to exist; there was no way possible for her to walk.

Step.

Step.

Step.

The woman made her way forward, like she didn't even notice the problem with her legs. Like she didn't even notice the storm around her.

Tiffany had the absurd thought that the woman was the cause of the storm.

Lightning whipped against the window again, and this time the bullet proof glass failed to stand up to it. There was no musical tinkle as the glass was torn apart, only the unholy roar of the wind as it threw glass shrapnel every which way. Tiffany and the other nurse dropped to their knees, below the counter.

The hand of fear took hold of Tiffany's heart. She back herself into the crawl space underneath her desk. For the first time in fifteen years, she began to pray.

Bo Dennis concentrated solely on walking. One foot in front of the other. For her there was absolutely nothing else in the world.

Step.

Step.

Step.

A vague pain came to her with every step, and thoughts such as ' _I don't have legs!_ ', ' _I'm dead_ ', ' _Who am I?_ ', swam through her head. She knew no other thoughts.

She didn't know who she was.

She didn't know where she was.

She didn't know how she had come to be.

There were images fluttering through her mind. A collage of violence drenched in hatred. One figure stood out above all others. It was a man, a man of monstrous proportions, and it had the head of a wolf. She remembered pain unlike any she had felt before.

 _How am I…_

She let the thought wither on the vine. She had no answer for it. Why ask a question when you don't know the answer.

Around her, which she paid no attention too, was a cacophony of pure energy. Wind whipped around her, a conical shaped vortex almost like a tornado. The energy manifested itself as bolts of lightning rippling out and away from her. The thunder crashed on her ears, yet it sounded like nothing more than bird song.

A camera somewhere was destroyed with a tearing crunch. She was close to some building. She could almost see the dark shape rising up out of the ground, growing there as if it was a cubical tree. The street lights sprouting up out of the ground were its roots. The cars around her were fruit dropped from the buildings branches.

The lightning whipped around.

One of the roots exploded in a shower of sparks.

One of the fruits was toppled by the wind, it rolled away as if it was running from her.

A window pane, large and bullet proof, off to her left, shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.

Two more of the fruits were transformed into bright orange and yellow flowers. The blooms only lasted a second.

Still the only thing that concerned her was that next step forward. And, the next. And, the next. That's all there was. One more step. One more heartbeat. One more breathe. Everything was done one at a time. Life was lived a moment at a time.

Bo felt herself drawn to the left. Drawn to the bright red cross above a pair of automatic doors.

That image meant something.

She let the symbol draw her, and when her storm tore it away she kept going in that direction.

The sliding doors opened.

The sliding doors were torn from their tracks by the force of the storm. They were folded, crumpled, and cast aside as though they were little more than paper.

Tiffany could hear the thunderous roar of the wind as the storm moved into the building. She bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut. She was squeezed back as far under the desk as possible.

 _Help me_ , the silent cry was in her mind more than her ears. She felt it, felt the cry moving with the storm, and she was being drawn to it.

Tiffany Grant climbed out from under her desk and walked around into the lobby. The storm whipped about, inflicting its fury on everything possible, but Tiffany stood there unharmed. She was in the eye now. She was staring eye to eye with the woman at the storms core. She wouldn't be able to recall it later, but this was the moment where reality split open for her.

The woman, with too skinny arms and legs she shouldn't be able to stand on was alive. Against all possible odds, she was alive. Tiffany could see where the woman's head had been sewn back onto her body.

Her mind wanted to scream and yell in the woman's face that she couldn't be real. Tell her that every fiber of her existence broke the laws of nature. Tiffany's mind cried out, rationality drowning in the deluge of the paranormal.

The woman was alive.

The woman was dead.

She had been dead, but now she was alive.

She was risen from the grave to walk again.

Tiffany's rationality drowned in the back of her mind. It was broken and gone, destroyed by the storm.

 _Help me!_

It was a cry only Tiffany heard.

She reached out as the woman came close. She took the woman's face in her hands, and with no idea why, she kissed her. Instant joy filled Tiffany.

The storm began to die.

Tiffany was lost in bliss as all life was drained from her body. She was lost in bliss as she aged from a healthy twenty-seven years old, to a barely there skin and bones old maid of a hundred and twenty.

When the storm died, and the two women fell, Tiffany Grant didn't exist anymore. She was little more than a pile of dust. But she died so that the woman, the beautiful beyond all belief woman, could live.


	3. Once Upon a Dream

Chapter Three: Once Upon a Dream

The sound of leather stretching, creaking, and pulling filled his ears. It jostled for position with the pounding of the men's hearts surrounding him. His nose was filled with their fear, the same fear that curled deep within his belly. Dyson shifted his weight, trying to find a more comfortable sitting position on the saddle. It seems, however, that they were designed to be the most uncomfortable thing on the planet.

Still he sat high and proud on the horse. It was a warhorse, a roan Clydesdale brought with him from the Scottish steppes. He adjusted his grip on the reigns, and dropped his right hand down to the hilt of his long sword, loosening it in its berth. He had his typical two-handed broad sword strapped to his back, but the long sword would be more practical in mounted combat. Not that he expected to stay mounted long. Not with the prey of this little hunting expedition.

The Queen, the Baronesses, and Duchesses of the land had sacrificed their silver for this mission. The archers were armed with arrows tipped in silver broad-heads. The swords and axes the footmen and the cavalry carried were silver plated. Dyson didn't think the silver would help. He shook his head and looked up into the pitch colored sky. Not a single silver speck of light hid there, but he knew the moon was at its apex and it was a great fat thing, dripping the hatred of the monsters down onto the land.

King 'Trick' had spent a great deal of time informing Dyson on what it was he would be facing. Dyson was a wolf shifter though, and he had heard much of it as he grew up.

The terror of the werewolf.

The werewolf was real.

It was out there in the night, and it wasn't alone.

For the first time, at least according to King 'Trick', a number of wolves had banded together and formed a pack of werewolves. 'Trick' had a number of different theories about why the pack had formed. None of them were pleasant.

The idea that terrified the men.

The fraction of the possibility chilled the blood in Dyson's veins.

Fenrir was among them.

Fenrir, not the fae bound by _Gleipnir_ which is said to carry _Ragnarok_ on its back, was believed to be the first werewolf. The very man the norn bound the soul of a wolf shifter too. The man that had a taste for human flesh to start with, and who developed a taste for fae flesh soon afterwards. Much is said about Fenrir. About how he maintained his rational instead of succumbing to the curse's madness. The whispers that said he could change at will. The myth that he could appear to any fae, or any man, at any time. There's even a legend that says he can kill with a thought. Another says that he's immortal, and will continue to hunt the forests of the world long after the disappearance of fae and man.

Dyson wasn't sure what he thought about Fenrir. He wasn't sure what he believed about the beast. He only knew it was a machine made for murder. Dyson clutched the reins a little tighter. If Fenrir was among the pack… Dyson knew this would be the last day of his life.

"Sir," one of the footmen said, coming up beside Dyson's Clydesdale.

Dyson let out a breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. His body shuddered with it, but he looked down at the footman and tried to keep his composure.

"What is it?"

"It's been fifteen minutes since the scout's last signal."

"What about it?"

"On your orders, the scouts are supposed to report every ten." The footman said. "So we can be sure the scouts are still out there."

All the spit dried up in Dyson's throat. Could the werewolves come up on them with such great stealth? Could they have breached the perimeter, without the scout giving one final warning scream?

"Form up!" Dyson shouted. He jerked the reins and pulled the horse back to the whole of his group. It was made up of humans and fae. The fae in the group were the palest. They knew what beast they were hunting. They knew of the death that awaited them. "I want a shield wall surrounding the group as a whole, with archers and pike-men placed behind each of the shields. Cavalry, take out your bows, we're bound to have better luck with them in this confined space. Infantry, I want a torch for every two soldiers, we need as much light as possible. Everyone else, keep your weapons at the ready, and pray to the gods of the Celts, the Christians, the Romans, and the Greeks. Against this foe we can use all the divine help we can get."

As a leader, Dyson knew that was the worst speech he could give to his soldiers. He should be saying something about how they were going to win the day, about how they were going to save their families, cities, and crops from the destruction this foe would bring down on them.

But, there…

In the dark…

Dyson found he couldn't lie.

Fifteen minutes passed with Dyson and his phalanx on high alert. All the torches had been lit. The archers stood with their bows raised and drawn. The pike-men were poised and ready to strike from their concealed position. The soldiers of the shield wall were braced against any impact. The cavalry felt exposed.

"Nothing's happening," one of the infantry men said.

"Nothing but a false alarm…" one of the archers said.

"Keep steady," Dyson yelled cutting them off.

In that moment things began to happen.

A howl split the night air.

To the north.

Another.

To the south.

And another, east.

Another, west.

Then a dozen more joined them. Fifteen howls filling the night air, splitting it with a sharp spike of terror. Nothing could be worse.

They were surrounded.

"What's that?" one of the cavalry men said, a fae barely old enough to have made the choice.

The question was answered as a body flew through the air, over the shield wall, over the archers and pike-men and down into the midst of the infantry men. They lost their placement, diving to avoid being hit by the body.

Dyson only had to look once. It was the body of the scout he'd sent out. The face was missing as were the arms below the elbow and the legs below the knee.

The infantry men rippled in a wave. Each of them knocking another out of position as they tried to get away from the body. The ripple hit the archers and the pike-men, and their weapons struck prematurely into the night air. The shield bearers were struck from behind, not the direction they were expecting, and each stumbled forward. The shield wall broke.

"How are they…?" Dyson said. His eyes were moons as he stared out into the night. He didn't get to finish his question though. The wolves had appeared in the trees surrounding them.

The largest of them, a beast on four legs the size of a dire bear, howled. It started the charge, and the other wolves followed suit.

"They're following orders…" Dyson said. "Form up! Form up!" He shouted, but it was beyond too late. The werewolves tore into his troops like a stone thrown through a window pane. The screams began. The chaos.

Dyson drew his sword and tried to move his horse forward, against the crush of bodies. He slashed at anyone in the way. Not caring whether he hit a friend or a foe.

The wolves pushed ever onward. Dyson was knocked from his horse.

The next twenty seconds, which might have been twenty minutes, or twenty hours, saw his horse's head torn from its neck. The blood sprayed out in a gout which drench the head of the werewolf responsible. Dyson was quick to recover. He slashed with his long sword, leaving a burning gash across the wolf's belly. He reversed his grip, bringing the sword back the other direction, but the wolf was faster.

The werewolf caught the blade, taking minor cuts on what counted as its fingers. It wrapped its paw around into a fist and jerked forward.

Dyson released the sword, allowing the werewolf to send it flying across the clearing.

A growl came from the depths of the werewolf's throat. Dyson shrugged as the beast turned back to him.

It dove for Dyson.

Dyson side stepped.

His hands were on the pommel of his broadsword in a flash. The steel blade rasping on the hardened leather of the sheath. Then it flashed, the pale moonlight glancing off the blade.

When Dyson straightened up, the top quarter of the blade was slick with blood, and the werewolf's head had landed about five feet away from where the body landed. Shock tried its damnedest to set in. His muscles began to shake, and the chill of the grave filled his body. He shook it aside though. He couldn't afford to break down now. There were too many of them. Too many of these beasts stalking the night. Killing one of them wasn't enough.

He turned back to the fray, and his eyes landed on the most out of place figure possible.

Kenzi stood in the middle of the battle. She was naked with cuts and scrapes oozing blood all over her. Her mouth and chin were covered in blood, the blood of fae, and the blood of humans. The tacky substance matted her hair. She stood there looking at him with her head cocked to one side, and the yellow gold eyes of a werewolf staring at him out sunken sockets.

"This isn't right…" Dyson muttered to himself. He tightened his grip on the broadsword, and raised it, ready for anything.

"I'm not supposed to meet you for a thousand years or more…" Dyson said.

Kenzi started to walk forward with a slow gait, a gunslinger's walk with a trademark slouch to her shoulders. It was like she was getting ready to draw a six shooter on him. But, he shouldn't know what a six shooter was. He shouldn't know Kenzi. She shouldn't be here. This battle ground was years ago, a losing battle fought in the dying years of the Middle-Ages.

Her hands curled into claws, and Dyson could now see the tendrils of flesh that hung from them. Fear crawled up from somewhere deep in his belly. He held the sword in front of him, knowing he could do nothing against Kenzi.

A snarl split Kenzi's lips, and a growl from a monster the size of a bear came forth. Whatever it was, it wasn't Kenzi anymore. Suddenly he was standing in front of Fenrir. The largest of the werewolves. The first. The most dangerous. His teeth glistened in the pale moonlight as he charged.

 _Here I come, daddy…_

Dyson jerked back away from Fenrir's attack and fell right out of bed. His head connected with the nightstand, the corner digging into the nape of his neck, and a startled cry coming from his lips.

He lay there for a moment. His chest heaving. A thin film of sweat covered the whole of his body. He could feel it as warmth spread across the back of his neck. Had he been human the impact with the nightstand would have killed him, but due to the gift of his fae nature he survived again…

Was it really a gift though?

Dyson shuddered as he thought of all the things this "gift" had taken him through. He blinked, and there was Fenrir, charging for him, his jaws opened into a great toothy maw. Dyson opened his eyes. Only Bo's bedroom surrounded him. He shuddered again, and wondered how he managed to survive that encounter with Fenrir.

He closed his eyes again, expecting Fenrir but only finding the peace and serenity of oblivion, and laid his head against the floor. It might be safer for him if went ahead and got up and moving for the day. Another dream like that… another fall like that, and he might really go to meet the great wolf spirit.

He took a few deep breaths, something to clear his head, and he heard crying on the floor above him.

Dyson looked out the window. He saw the moon hanging there, its pale moonlight filling the room. Terror crawled in his belly again, it crawled and churned as he got up to go upstairs. Its grip seemed to get stronger as he thought of Kenzi.

The image of Kenzi on the battlefield. Her body covered in wounds, her face covered in blood, the flesh hanging from her fingers.

He shook his head.

No.

Kenzi would tell him if she'd been infected…

Wouldn't she?

Author's Note: As to any questions about how Bo was resurrected, the answers will be provided as the story unfolds. As for a little hint… vampires. Think about how a vampire relates to a succubus, and what powers the two might share. If you figure it out, don't tell anybody, it's a secret. Lol.


	4. Tears in the Pale Moonlight

Readers: "Luuuuuucccccyyyy… You got some 'splainin' to do. :(

Me: O.O

Readers: "Out with it."

Me: Oh, all right. I've been having problems here recently. As you can see from the post dates, I've gone well over a month without updating the story. This is my fault. (How could it be anyone else's?) This lack of updating, is because of a lack of writing. I haven't been working at nearly the pace I want too. If I had, the actual writing of In the Pale Moonlight would already be done, with the chapters waiting patiently to get posted. That would right alongside the other two novel projects that I've got going. Plus the edits on a third… Let's just say I'm not getting as much as I want done. And… I blame World of Warcraft… Yeah… Anyway, enough of me bitching. On with the show!

Chapter Four

Tears in the Pale Moonlight

Wouldn't she?

The question echoed in Dyson's head as he pulled himself up off the floor. He checked the back of his neck with one hand, found a tacky spot of drying blood and grimaced. Another gift from Fenrir. The gift that keeps on giving apparently.

A headache was underway. Born of the contact with the nightstand, born of the terror of Fenrir he shook his head—a bad idea—but drove the thought out. Fenrir had been dead for more than a millennia. Dyson had seen to that. He remembered his silver plated broadsword, slicked with the blood of the first werewolf. He remembered how he had howled at the moon that night. It was almost like he was mourning the loss of a brother.

He remembered the nick in his bracer.

He remembered the little weal of blood.

Then he remembered Jessa Mae and nothing more.

Trick's trap fell into place. He couldn't remember what happened in that ten year time span.

Dyson pressed his palm to one temple, and shook his head, slowly this time. Now wasn't the time to think about Trick or Jessa Mae or Fenrir for that matter. Kenzi was upstairs. She was crying. She was the here and now, the only thing that mattered. Let the past lay with the dead.

He grabbed a robe, and wrapped it around himself as made his way through the house. Bo's memorabilia was everywhere. Until now it hadn't affected him. Bo was dead, and these were just things. But, he stopped, looking at a picture of him and Bo and Kenzi pinned to the fridge by a magnet. He couldn't remember what they'd been doing when the picture was taken. Probably a pizza night at Dave & Busters. The three of them were smiling.

Dyson blinked and caught it in the corner of his eye.

It looked like…

He looked at the picture a little closer. He blinked and caught it again.

When he opened his eyes he could see it. There. Behind Bo. It looked like the reflection of a tornado.

The moment seemed prophetic, but he brushed the thought aside. Bo was gone. Terra's wolf had captured, tortured, and killed Bo, leaving her body as one more clue for Dyson. What was left of Bo was at the county morgue. They were awaiting contact form the Dennis's to determine what would be done with the body.

Dyson mentally shoved the thoughts away. He'd tried to come to terms with what happened. He was sure he'd succeeded.

Kenzi was the now, however. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

He passed through the kitchen, and up the steps at the back of the building. The sounds of Kenzi's tears increased with every step. As he climbed higher and higher thoughts, memories, dreams, all of it seemed to smash together as he climbed the last step.

Looking through the vaguely human shaped hole in the bathroom wall, Dyson could see Kenzi wedged between the sink and tub. She was wrapped in a coil, like a rope laying unused on the deck of a ship. Her head was on her knees, with her hair fanning and blocking out any good view of her face. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and her hands were clasped together around her ankles.

It was a fetal position crying session. Centuries of experience with women told Dyson this was as bad as it could get.

Dyson started down the hallway.

Blink.

Kenzi was no longer curled up by the tub. She wasn't anywhere. In her place was a frightened wolf cub. It was whining and whimpering, but Dyson knew a wrong step would earn a vicious turn of attitude. It would be teeth and flying fur all over the place.

Blink.

Kenzi was back.

Blink.

The cub.

Blink.

Kenzi.

Dyson stepped into the bathroom and looked down at her. He blinked and she remained Kenzi, but the sense of her, her smell, it had changed. He could almost feel the wolf there, crawling beneath her skin. It would crave freedom soon, and then the madness would begin.

If it hasn't already.

Kenzi let one more sob out, then caught control of her breathing. She knew Dyson was there. She couldn't not know, even though she'd not moved her eyes from behind her knees. There was the general sense of his fae power and more than that, much more than that, there was the smell. The smell of the opposing wolf, the challenge Dyson's wolf offered when he scented her, and there was the smell of fae blood. That smell, in particular, was the worst.

That smell made her hungry.

"You were infected," Dyson said. It wasn't a question, merely a statement of fact.

She wanted to start crying again.

Kenzi held out her arms for Dyson to inspect. Her arms were missing two things, one on each. There should have been long slashes on her wrists going all the way down her forearms. They should be half healed, with the stitches on them making her look like Frankenstein's monster.

There were no slashes on her arms. There wasn't even scar tissue there to suggest the slashes, a solitary act of stupidity, ever existed. Only fresh pinkish skin covered her arms.

This time she couldn't stop the sob when she felt Dyson's hands on her arms. She wanted to lean into them, be held by them, but she had to _know_ first.

His fingers traced long lines on her arms. What should have been the "T" shaped wounds. He traced it the way the razor had cut. Now, she felt as though his fingers might as well be razors. If Dyson knew, where would it go from there?

She had to _know_.

She was terrified of _knowing_.

She was afraid of hearing it out loud.

"Look at me," Dyson said. It was an order. She couldn't tell what was going on in Dyson's head. He had to feel betrayed. She'd had to _know_ what needed to be done.

"Look at me Kenzi, please," Dyson said, his voice a little softer now.

A shudder ran through her as she started to raise her head. The hair on the back of her neck stood up like hackles. Would he look into the werewolf's eyes or hers? Would it be quick when he…

She looked up at Dyson. She saw the flinch, felt his hands twitch as fear and anger surged through him. He stared down at her, unable to believe, and the yellow gold eyes of the werewolf stared right back up at him.

"Oh, Kenzi," Dyson said.

She pushed, her coiled form springing, as she drew his arms around her. Surrounded by the comfort of his warmth and his scent. She listened to the pounding of his heart, frantic at first, then slowing down to a steady mnemonic drone. She could almost sleep like this.

Dyson did wrap his arms around her. There was a need to comfort her, even though he knew what she was. Even though he _knew_ what must happen. He took a deep breath, and he made his decision.

"Are you going to kill me now?" Kenzi asked. Her voice shook as she said it. Fear dripping off every word.

"No," Dyson said. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not going to let what happened to Terra happen to you. I can't stand by idly and watch all the women in my life fall prey to this monster."

"The fae will want to kill me," Kenzi said. She'd turned her head, burying it in Dyson's chest, and she stared out into space. She let a sigh escape her lips. "The light and the dark."

Dyson nodded. It was a fact he couldn't deny.

"How long have you known?" Dyson asked.

"Since the night after the whole Terra thing," Kenzi said. "When I screamed in the bathroom. I saw the werewolf's eyes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid," Kenzi said. "I still am. I don't want to die. I don't want to become a monster either."

Dyson was nodding. His warmth was surrounding her, penetrating her fear tightened muscles, and giving her a general sense of normality, safety. Her breathing slowed and her eyes drooped shut.

"I don't want to be a monster. Lykos don't…" Kenzi muttered before she was fully asleep.


	5. Missing Something Important

Chapter Five

Missing Something Important

"His name was Matthew Fade," Dyson's new partner said, looking up from the tablet she always carried with her. She was also a fae by the name of Alynnis. Her fae form was a tree nymph, one she barely hid with her human skin, and one where her powers leaked through almost all the time. Nymphs, of any type, were like succubi, hyper sexual. In her true form she would be able to create a glamour of her lover's ideal partner. She looked up at Dyson with big emerald eyes and her mouth open ever so slightly.

Dyson could feel her pressing her powers against him. Like a succubus, nymphs were almost always "thirsty". And Alynnis had taken to Dyson right off the bat. Dyson gave her a cold look. She blinked, and looked back down at the screen, her cheeks reddening.

"All human records of him have been wiped out," she reported. "We're still unsure as to why that happened."

"What about memories?" Dyson asked. He looked around the room. They were standing in the middle of the morgue. He'd been here before, a couple of times. In one of those he'd been chasing a body jumper, and he'd lost a friend who had been a morgue attendant here. There were surgical tables all lined up with bodies hiding under thin white sheets. It was a fresh group that had been waiting for processing when whatever happened, happened.

They were standing by one of the refrigeration units, with the table drawn out, and an all too familiar tag laying on the cold steel surface. Beside the table was the form of a man, or what had once been a man.

"Memories, sir?" Alynnis asked.

Dyson knelt down and lifted the sheet. He found the shriveled form of Matthew Fade. Matt had been through hell. Dyson had seen him once before, under similar circumstances, but he hadn't been the one under the sheet. He had been about twenty-five years old as well. Matt's corpse looked like it belonged to a one hundred and sixty year old human, who'd had the pleasure of being mummified alive. His skin was thin as parchment paper and pulled tight over the bones until it looked inhuman. His eyes were gone. As were his arms below the elbows and his legs below the knees. Funny, considering…

"Yes," Dyson said. "See if anybody has any memories of him. Friends, family, coworkers, lovers, anybody and everybody he might have had contact with. If the records were wiped… that might mean something. If the memories are gone, it definitely means something."

"Like what sir?"

"It means that his soul was destroyed, making it seem as though he never existed."

"But fae records…" Alynnis started.

"Are protected by the most powerful of magic," Dyson said. "AS are our memories."

 _Except for Trick…_ Dyson thought. _Except for the Blood King._

Alynnis nodded and gave one last look at the shrouded figure on the floor, shuddered, and walked back to where the other officers were milling about.

Dyson lowered the sheet, and pressed two fingers to his temple. Now came the big question. _How?_ Who could have taken Bo's body, and how did they drain away the very fact that Matt Fade had existed. He stood up and leaned against the sliding table. He looked down at the tag.

Bo Dennis. It gave her age, weight, height (all of that post werewolf attack), and about half a dozen other lifeless statistics. Dyson had been putting off the funeral arrangements. He'd gotten in contact with Bo's adoptive parents four days ago, basically the day after the ordeal with Terra ended. They had been torn to hear about Bo's death. They said they'd get here as soon as possible. Dyson was putting off the arrangements off till they got here.

And now…

Now Dyson would have to explain to them that they're adoptive daughter's corpse had been stolen.

He let go a deep sigh and straightened up.

 _How?_ He asked himself again.

Was it possible Bo wasn't dead?

Crazy talk. She'd been dismembered, disemboweled, and decapitated. She had to be dead. The only entity to have ever survived that kind of torment was Grigori Rasputin, and he was a…

Dyson's eyes went wide. He ran across the room to Alynnis. "I need you to take care of things here. I won't be gone for more than an hour."

"What?" Alynnis asked, but it was too late. Dyson was already out the door. The human cops stood staring. Alynnis stared herself, for a moment more.

"Alright," she said, finally fixing things in place. "We need to cover every inch of this crime scene. Has CSI arrived yet?"

(***)

Dyson had his cell phone to his ear as soon as he was in the car.

"Pick up the phone Trick!" Dyson growled.

"Dahl, Trick speaking."

"I don't have time for pleasantries," Dyson said. "Grigori Rasputin, he was an incubus right?"

"Rasputin?" Trick said. "Why do you need to know anything about Rasputin?"

"Just answer the question Trick."

"Yes, Rasputin was an incubus." Trick said and sighed. "He was an incubus, the male version of the succubus, what does that have to do with anything?"

"Bo's body is missing." Dyson said.

"Missing…" Trick said, his voice trailing off. Dyson could almost hear the gears begin to move in Trick's head. They would move and make connections much faster than Dyson's mind could. As much as he hated the Blood King right now, Dyson needed him.

"Bo's body was mutilated," Dyson said. "Her arms and legs were torn off. She'd been disemboweled. And, she was decapitated. Now her body's missing. What does that sound like?"

"Rasputin," Trick said. The line went quiet for a moment. Dyson imagined Trick sitting back in his chair. His eyes getting wider as he made the connections. "Rasputin." Trick said again.

"Yes," Dyson said. "It sounds exactly like Rasputin. The man was a fae, an incubus! He was shot, poisoned, and hanged. He didn't die. They threw him in the river and there he drowned."

"But what has that got to do with Bo?" Trick asked.

"Rasputin's body was never found." Dyson said. "And, there were rumors that the people who conspired against him were erased from existence…"

"A succubus, or an incubus, can have that effect on a soul should they literally be standing on Death's Door." Trick said. "The incubi and the succubi powers are demonic in nature. The soul doesn't die when the body does, it's just banished back to whatever plane of existence it was born on."

"What do they have to do to step back through that door?" Dyson asked. "There's no time for cryptic bullshit."

"Well," Trick said. "They would need to have a host body, the easiest one being the body they just vacated. Their body would have to be mostly in one piece, and there would need to be an energy exchange. For an incubus or succubus that would mean sexual energy."

"I got there too," Dyson said. "And, I've got an idea as to what might have happened."

With that Dyson hung the phone up, and looked at oncoming traffic. There was nothing exciting there. Not so exciting as the things he was thinking about.

His finger was a blur of motion, working the numbers of his smartphone and screwing it to his ear.

"Detective Thornwood?" Alynnis's voice came from the other end. She sounded unsure for some reason.

"I'm going to be gone longer than expected," Dyson said. "I need you to check Fade's records for me. See if he had ever shown any inclination towards necrophilia."

"Necro…what?" Alynnis started to say. Dyson cut her off. He had several things more important to do than listen to her confusion. There was the DOT to assess any accidents that had occurred last night. Then there was the meterological survey, he thought of them after remembering the tornado in the picture, to see if there had been any unusual activing. Then he had a long list of hospitals to check with.

He sighed and opened iMessage. This one was the most important.

(***)

The notification form her iPhone dinged again. Kenzi groaned. She raised her head up off the pillow, just enough to look at the phone's profile. She dropped her head back to the pillow and closed her eyes.

She was safe here, swaddled in Dyson's smell, in the warmth he'd imparted to her in the wee morning hours after her dream. She could almost feel him holding her. And she almost went back to sleep.

Then the iMessage notification went off again.

Kenzi groaned and rolled over.

Her hand hit he table to the left of the phone, and after a few seconds of blindly searching, she had it in her hand. One click of a button and her lock screen came up. It was a picture of Dyson, how he'd looked after that… She unlocked the phone and went to the messages. She was happy she was still lying in bed.

 _I think Bo's alive. D._


	6. Tricksie Wolves

Chapter Six

Tricksie Wolves

Kenzi's fashion choices were muted, compared to her normal attire.

She'd gone through both her closet and Bo's to come up with an outfit. In the end she picked a pair of jeans she'd had since high school, the material was so well worn it was more comfortable than any pair of leggings she'd ever worn. The chosen tee-shirt featured both the color black and the Metallica emblem, making it look like the cover of Metallica's "Black" album.

From Bo's closet she pulled a black duster one size too big for her. The sleeves ended about halfway down her hands, and was the perfect cover for a pair of knife sheath bracers strapped to her wrists. Had anyone asked why, she'd have told them 'anything's possible'.

She grabbed a pair of Bo's cool grey combat boots, one's that laced all the way up to her mid-calf. Bo might have a larger jacket size and a bigger bust, but the two women shared a shoe size.

Through the entire selection process she tried to keep her mind off the text message she'd received.

Bo's alive…

How?

Kenzi didn't know. She didn't even know if she'd read the text message right, though she'd read it a thousand times this morning.

"I think Bo's alive. D." Kenzi said, reading the text aloud without looking at her phone.

"I think Bo's alive."

She shook her head and sat down hard on the couch.

What did that mean?

And, why wasn't she happy?

Kenzi had seen the blood splattered phone. The pictures on it, pictures taken by Terra's wolf; pictures which would be a sado-masochist's wet dream. She'd seen the corpse, the tortured decapitated head with the eyes yanked out. She'd been the one to find that last grisly piece of evidence.

She saw it in her nightmares.

What kind of kindness would it be for Bo to live through that?

What kind of god would make such a sadistic thing possible?

Wait…

Scratch that. She didn't want to know the answer to that question, considering all the horrific things she'd found in the fae world.

Kenzi sighed.

With a pair of mirror lensed aviator sunglasses on, to try and hide her tear puffed eyes, Kenzi stepped out the door to confront reality.

She was going to the Dahl. Trick was there. He would have the answers she needed. None of which included Bo.

(***)

As always there was an intense battle to get a cab, and the one she picked turned out to have a Middle Eastern driver. He wore a tan turban, had deep set dark colored eyes, and skin the color of fresh rye bread. A beard stretched across his mouth and jaw, well-kept and flecked with bits of grey. He looked respectable, and maybe a little cute.

Kenzi could hear his heart beating.

She told him where she wanted to go and the taxi man drove.

Kenzi sat back in the faux leather seats and squeezed the bridge of her nose. The migraine building up between her temples was going to be killer. She squeezed the bridge of her nose to try and alleviate some of the tension.

It didn't work very well.

"You look like the fate of the world sits upon your shoulders my child," the cab driver said. Kenzi caught the 'my child' par and stuffed her automatic sarcastic reaction back down its thought hole. The man meant well. Hell, maybe he even knew what he was talking about.

"Maybe not the world," Kenzi said. "But enough of it to break my back." She let out a low sigh. She felt the eyes of the cabdriver on her. She looked up and found him watching her from the rearview mirror.

Lykos mumbled something. Kenzi couldn't hear it. There was a roaring in her ears. The roaring was a heartbeat. His heartbeat.

Why was the cabdriver's heart beating so loudly?

The cab jerked a hard left. The roaring in her ears covered the sounds of the tires. Kenzi's hand was under pressure. She felt it as it tore through something, cloth, and foam stuffing and something else. There was a warm wet tackiness that spread out over her fingers, wrist, and forearm as she took hold of something malleable and precious.

The driver jerked the car to the right, tires squealing, and the cab came to a sudden stop when the front crumpled against a concrete barrier. The roaring in her ears continued for a second longer. Until the final strands snapped.

Her hand came back, and now Kenzi saw her blood drenched gift.

The cabdriver's heart was in the palm of her hand. It gave one final shuddering beat before it went totally still. Kenzi sucked air in. She could taste the hot copper smell in the air. The scream was cut off, just before it escaped.

"That'll be $22.95," the cabdriver said. Kenzi blinked and everything was normal again. There wasn't a heart in her hand and her arm wasn't covered in blood so red it was black. The car hadn't crashed. And, the cabdriver was still alive. Above all, he was still alive.

Without even paying attention to where she was, Kenzi jumped out of the cab. She pulled two bills out of her pocket; two twenties, and threw them in the cab.

"Keep the change," Kenzi mumbled before she took off, running as far and as fast as she could. She had to get away. Had to out run that vision.

Lykos laughed while she ran.

(***)

When Kenzi arrived at the Dahl her hair was plastered to her forehead in long ropey strands. It hadn't been raining out, so sweat was the culprit. Kenzi had run from the cab, which had taken her right to the Dahl, and she'd gone four or so blocks past that. There was a stitch in her side, and her breathing was coming in long heavy gasps.

All eyes in the room turned towards her.

Kenzi straightened up as much as possible, and pulled the duster tight. She kept her head tucked low, almost popping the collar to hide her face.

 _They all know_ , Lykos whispered in her ear. She looked up at the crowd again and…

Nobody was looking at her. The small clustering of groups hadn't even turned when the door opened.

 _I'm going mad,_ Kenzi thought. _Madder than a hatter._

She shook her head and made her way over to the bar. Trick stood behind it, using little stools here and there to keep him on eye level with his customers. He still had a white gauze bandage cutting across his face. It wrapped all the way around, to provide enough tension to hold a wire mesh and plastic eyepatch over the missing orb.

The loss of that eye had been Kenzi's fault after a fashion.

And, Trick was going to leave it that way.

Kenzi suppressed a shudder. The reminder of that night, not the disfigurement. She sat down on one of the stools towards the end of the bar, and after seeing to an angry looking frost giant, Trick made his way down to her. He pulled a pilsner glass out of a glass faced cabinet and started to fill it with Bud Light.

"Fae Brew," Kenzi said. Trick eyed her, shook his head and filled the pilsner. He cut the foam and added two inches. He set it down in front of her.

"Fae Brew would eat through the lining of your stomach in about fifteen minutes. It wasn't designed with human stomachs in mind. It's brewed by the aswang if I'm not mistaken."

Kenzi's eyes went wide as saucers. "Bud Light it is."

Trick smiled. "Now, what's got you bothered? I haven't seen you dress like that in… well… ever really."

Kenzi shrugged. She thought about telling him everything. Opening up to him the same way she had to Dyson. It would be cathartic. She would cry again.

Her hallucination passed in front of her mind's eye. She thought she had murdered that man. She thought she'd torn his still beating heart from his chest. What would Trick say when she told him that? Telling Trick might end in a phone call to the Ash, and what fun that would cause.

She sighed.

"I've been thinking a lot about Terra recently," Kenzi said. "I was wondering if there was anything more that could have been done. I mean, is there a cure or something?" It wasn't such a lie. She had been thinking about Terra and her wolf, but the cure was totally something she wanted for herself.

"That's a big question," Trick said. "One that isn't easily answered. Years' worth of study has been done on the werewolf; why they were made; how the infection travels; is it an infection, like a disease, or is it a curse?" Trick shook his head. "There have been many attempts at a cure, or at the very least control over the madness the beast brings with it. I'm not sure, but I haven't seen anything to the positive or negative in that regard."

Kenzi nodded, a little deflated. "I suppose I expected that answer."

"Now," Trick said. He placed his hand on hers and turned it over. "Be honest with me about why you want to know. Terra's already well past any help a few moldy old books might provide."

Kenzi felt her arms catch fire. Trick's hand wasn't far from where her stiches should be. She was wearing the bracers though, he shouldn't be able to see anything.

She sighed, and deflated a little farther. Her decision was made.

"We should go somewhere private."

Author's Note:

I guess now would be a good a time as any to explain the whole situation with Bo. XD

As you can tell from the story thus far, Bo has been resurrected. Suspicion for this occurrence has been thrown on a morgue attendant who decided to get "frisky" with her corpse… .

And, her succubus powers have gone into overdrive, to the point where she literally drains away a person's existence in an attempt to restore her lost life, limbs, and what not.

Where am I getting all this shit from?

That's what most of you are thinking I'm sure. XD

The answer to that comes from three-ish sources, and those root sources are drawn from folk-lore and legends about the supernatural beings being represented.

First, the resurrection itself is based off the idea of a vampire. A succubus, like a vampire, drains away the life energy of their target, in turn restoring their own vitality, health, and thus and such. Vampires, whether they're active participants in the transaction or not, can be revived from ash and bone by the smallest amount of blood.

This is pulled from multiple mythos, but the one I'm thinking about is the situation in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 where the blood of multiple goons is essentially poured down old Drac's throat, with the unfortunate coincidence of waking his bloodsucking hungry ass up. (If you've not seen it, check it out, it's a good movie. And, you get a bunch of wonderful scenes of Gerard Butler without his shirt on.)

In Bo's case (the way I'm currently portraying it) the "blood" shed to revive her is the necrophilia style rape of her corpse. This action created sexual energy (chi or what not) that jump started her energy collection instinct. (This is also looking at it as though it was a knee jerk reaction. Bo may have learned how to control her powers over the years, but her first time was still a knee jerk reaction.)

The second source is Dungeons and Dragons and all the wonderful media that's been built up about demons and how they're perceived to interact with our world.

In D&D (and just about every mythology that deals with them) the succubus/incubus is a type of demon that feeds on, you guessed it, sexual energy. But, that's the basis for the character of Bo, the relevant portion of this mythos is what happens to a succubus/incubus when they die. A demon doesn't die. When the demon's mortal form is destroyed the astral element of the creature, which is actually the demon, is banished back to the outer plane of existence that it's native too (i.e. Hell, The Abyss, Tartarus, The House of Dust, Hades, the list goes on and on for quite some time actually…).

So, following that mythology when Terra's wolf "killed" Bo, she didn't destroy Bo's astral essence/soul/whatever. She merely forced it to another realm of existence.

This is also evidenced in _In the Morning Light_ , in Chapter 12 _Tequila was Involved_ , when we get to see from the perspective of Bo and Hale's ghosts. Their astral essence, as it was, was relocating from our physical material plane to an immaterial plane somewhere in the existence of the cosmos.

There is also precedence for demons returning to the material plane. In D&D a demon is only banished from the material world for a period of one hundred years after the destruction of its physical form. There are also many ways around this in game, innumerable spells, and summonings. Often times it was even the one responsible for banishing them that could make it possible for them to return to this reality.

What it all boils down to is that some extraneous circumstance made it possible for Bo's astral essence to return to her corporeal form. Back to the whole necrophilia and knee jerk energy transfer and what not.

And, all of that is lovely evidence to support Bo's resurrection in the context of the story. But, really it all boils down to this. It's a plot device.

I started writing _In Morning Light_ with the intent to try and transition it to an original fiction series. In doing so I needed to come up for an analogue for Bo. I became really attached to that character, but I knew there wasn't a way for the first book to work if she wasn't killed.

So, I dreamed up a way of resurrecting her.

In the original fiction version of the story, Bo's analogue will be bitten by a vampire at the beginning of _In the Morning Light_ , infecting her with vampirism. The curse/infection/whatever doesn't have time to run its full course though by the time she's killed. Instead of being instantly dusted when she's killed by Terra's wolf, the analogue is mutilated, blah, blah, blah.

In the second book ( _In the Pale Moonlight_ , if you couldn't guess), Bo's analogue is going to go through a similar resurrection process. Only she gets to cut out the whole necrophilia thing, because that's weird… just saying. That is why she's infected with vampirism at the beginning of the first book. So that the disease had progressed far enough to the point where she would be able to resurrect as a sort of half vampire after a morgue attendant accidentally cuts himself while he's examining her body. Blood/energy exchange and voila you've got a character that cheated death.

Now, in hindsight, Bo's resurrection would probably have been easier to explain if I'd just said she'd been bitten by a vampire sometime before the beginning of _In the Morning Light_. But, it also would have been cheating, because the vampiric infection wouldn't appear in the first book. That would have bothered me.

So, I came up with the whole convoluted mess, so I could tie up plot lines in a story that only partially exists right now. XD

Also, as an added note… if you were wondering about the storm in the first scene where Bo is resurrected that's also because of the analogue. The analogue is an aerokinetic (can control wind, lighting, thunder, and what not with her mind) and the storm is representative of her rebirth and reentry into the world of the living, the reawakening of her power so to speak.

Anyway, thank you for listening to me run my mouth for a while. I'm now going to be off working on my book and maybe other parts of _In the Pale Moonlight._ Maybe, at some point in the next month or so, I'll be able to establish a regular posting schedule with the story. It's just that things are really chaotic for me right now, and I'm trying to juggle about twelve different things.

Anywho, happy reading :D


	7. Horrible News

Horrible News :/

Well, it's not fair for me to leave you guys hanging at the end of such a long rope. So, here's the deal.

Right now I've been really focused on getting my original fiction up and running. I just sent out my first novel submission to a large publisher (Tor-Forge, fingers crossed), and I'm looking at getting some stuff self-published, or run through smaller presses.

Life has come down really hard on me, and I need to make this career thing happen if I'm going to be able to move forward with my life.

Unfortunately, this leaves fanfiction and anything written in that vein at the very end of my list of things to do.

So, I'm not going to say this is the end of the Fading Light series. As things are right now, it's very unlikely that I'll be able to continue it.

If you want, though, you can keep up with my original fiction and what not by following me on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook page: .com [backslash] ryanmsmith1986

Twitter handle: buttonthechosen

I am sorry about dragging you guys on for so long. I hope you can forgive me for being a major flake.

Here's hoping to see you on the other side.

Ryan M. Smith


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